


Skin Deep

by PikaPixie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff, Multi, Swearing, Teen Romance, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 17:13:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6619276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaPixie/pseuds/PikaPixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmates!AU In which Gaara has "Do you want an ear?" written down his spine and Fumiko is confused by all the "Leave me alone"s. Sometimes soulmates aren't meant to be... and sometimes they make themselves precious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skin Deep

Leave me alone.

Three words Fumiko had wanted to hear and had been hearing for most of her life.

But it was confusing, because a lot more people said "Leave me alone" than, say, her friend Lee's "Hey, does this gym have any heavier weights?" (Because the gym Lee went to was state-of-the-art and Fumiko really wanted to meet this girl) And anyway, usually when people said "Leave me alone"... well, it wasn't exactly an invitation of friendship, let alone anything more.

Fumiko didn't really actively look for her soulmate, but she definitely asked a follow-up whenever someone said that to her: "Um, do you have a mark?" Because really, hers was too generic, and it was probably up to whoever told her to go away to let her know that "hey, you said the thing on my spine". She figured eventually she would meet him- because wasn't that kind of the point, that you would?

Or maybe it was even a girl. That happened sometimes, too- same-gender soulmates.

She didn't really know what she would do when she found- whoever it was. Just strike up a conversation she guessed. Whatever happened, really, she trusted fate to just let what happen may. Not everyone ended up with their soulmate, after all- a lot married others, ignoring their marks. Maybe they would just be really great friends. Fumiko would be fine with that.

Fumiko's mark had manifested at an amazingly young age- the average was fifteen or sixteen, and hers had appeared one hot summer day a week after her seventh birthday. The handwriting was perfect: straight, flowing calligraphy with absolutely no artistic flair she could pick out after years of twisting to see it in the mirror. It looked almost painful. Who would write like that? Like computer font.

It ran down some of her spine, starting at the cervical bump just below her neck and stopping at the bottom of her shoulder blades. A hidden mark: fitting, she supposed, for this apparently lonely, angry person who wrote like he'd been tracing copies his whole life.

Mai, her younger sister, liked to say it was the stupidest mark on the planet. How the hell was she supposed to figure it out when the words were shitty and everyone was assholes?

Mai didn't have her mark yet, but it would probably show up soon. She was fifteen, after all. It would be any day now, unless she was one of those ultra-rare cases and one never appeared. Fumiko wondered if it had anything to do with psychology. Did the universe know when your personality was stable? Did it matchmake once it knew who you were?

Honestly, aside from knowing a bunch of more stuff, she probably wasn't all that different from when she was seven. At least that's what people told her.

Some of her friends had already met their soulmates. Naruto and Hinata- their marks were funny, Hinata's leg had "Hi, I'm Naruto Uzumaki!" in big bolded messiness, and Naruto a string of onomatopoeia that eventually spelled out something like "Um Um Umm I know" in much more controlled kanji. Kiba had met someone in another state. A bunch of her graduating class had as well.

She was eighteen. She had plenty of time to find, or not find, whoever told her to leave them alone. What would be her first words to them? She wondered curiously. What was written on their back? Oops, it was probably in a seven year old's kanji. Marks appeared simultaneously, as far as science could tell.

Her mother always pushed her to go out and socialize, but aside from her friends down in the other school a few counties away, she didn't have many. Locally, here in Sand, she was pretty not-popular. People said she was annoying- too hyper, too childish, too self-indulgent. Most of the kids she new were stern, straight and strict. Most of the adults, as well.

She tried, of course. She wandered the school at lunch hour and left for random adventures away from her house and went to as many parties as others would let her in. Fumiko liked people. She liked them a lot. But if she'd already found her soulmate or ever would, she didn't know. What if they hid it? What if she said her words first and maybe didn't want a soulmate?

That would be fine too, as long as they were friends. Whoever it was, she was made for. That would be a probably awesome friendship.

...

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It looks like a dolphin."

Shikamaru made a disgruntled sound beside her. "It's a fish."

"Yeah but, the blowhole."

"What blowhole?"

Fumiko pointed and looked over at him as he squinted up after her finger. "That one. And there's a cloud over there that'll blow over and make a spout if it stays together."

"Oh." He grunted. "Mendokuse. You're right."

She and Shikamaru often hung out to cloud-watch over the weekend. Fumiko needed somewhere to go when her parents sent her out to be friendly, and Shikamaru was almost always in this field for hours at a time, hiding from his mother and his schoolwork.

It was fifteen dollars for the train ride between cities, and an hour long walk besides to find the meadow, but Fumiko made lots of things on Etsy and she loved nature walks despite the issue they caused her crutches, so it was a win-win. Maybe while she was here she could walk downtown and visit Naruto and Lee, too.

"You seem kinda distracted," she said mildly, dropping he hand down on her stomach. And he was. Only seeing one shape in the clouds, rather than agreeing. Spacing off more than usual. "Everything okay?"

There was a really long pause, but that was pretty normal in their conversations. It took a minute for Shikamaru to both decide whether not something required an answer and whether he wanted to bother answering, and then thinking of an answer. Talking to Shikamaru was a lot like playing Go with him.

"My mark showed up last week," he said finally, after a long, disinterested sigh. "My mom's been nagging, and my dad's no help as usual."

"Oh, yeah?" she blurted, surprised, and rolled on her side, propping up her head with her hand. "I thought the people your mom took you to said you'd never get one?"

Shikamaru shrugged with his hands behind his head, keeping his eyes on the sky. "How should they know? There's not any logical reason for them. I guess I was just late. Kinda sucks."

"Lazy as always," she teased. "C'mon, what is it?"

Now he tilted his face over to see her, eyes a little more open and less droopy than usual. "What's it matter?"

"I dunno. Just curious." She laughed a little, rolled over onto her stomach to put her face on both hands. "It can't be any worse than mine."

"It's not," he said. "It's just 'You're one of those Nara, then?'"

"Oh. Huh. Where is it?"

It's on my foot," he said, huffing a breath. "Ankle up."

"On your foot?" she laughed again, kicking up her one proper leg to wave it. "So what's wrong with your mark showing up? I know you said you wanted to just find someone else with no mark, but you don't have to-"

"Like I said, my mom's just being weird about it," he said dismissively. "What about you? Find your recluse yet?"

Shikamaru knew all of her thoughts, theories and secrets. He was one of the best kind of listeners, not often speaking, but not ignoring. So of course he'd heard her ramble her wonderings on this mysterious soulmate somewhere between theoretical recipes, art styles and projects, her studies in science and attempts at poetry and thoughts on butterflies, deer and nimbus clouds and greek myths.

Fumiko told all of this to anyone, but Shikamaru remembered. So did Lee, Hinata, Shino... Naruto tried. Because they were friends!

"Dunno," she said, grinning, flowing with the subject change. "If I have they haven't told me yet."

"Are you going to that Easter thing?" he asked. "That's the main thing my mom's on about. Now that I have a mark... I don't really have an excuse not to look for a date."

"You know it," she agreed, flashing another grin and flopping back to loo at the clouds again. It smelled like honey and honeysuckle out here, the grass soft and prickled beneath her fingers. "Will you guys be there? It's kind of a big thing in Suna."

"Yeah, yeah. Mayor's house and all that. My dad's making me go."

"Everyone else?"

He just shrugged. "Ask Lee."

...

This was not Gaara's idea of fun.

Not many things were, and even so, his time was scheduled. Tutors, events, extracurriculars. He didn't have time for fun things.

But still. An Easter party? There wasn't any point. When he thought of easter, he thought of stupid bunnies and candies and kids running for eggs in a violent chase. He didn't think of pastel ball gowns and too-tight suits with an embarrassing shade of blue tie.

On his best day, Gaara knew he wasn't sociable. He preferred the background- keeping his eyes on the door, on the people, with nobody behind him.

It helped that he was who he was- the mayor's son. The only people who bothered him were those sent to do so, socially or violently. The socialites were annoying, but the average citizens- the ones with prom dresses and borrowed suit pieces, differences he'd been trained to notice- were just as bad as the kids that played in the streets and went to public school; noisy, irritating, curious.

Resentful.

Nobody trusted him, nobody liked him, nobody thought he deserved what he had. Nobody bothered him.

He held back a sigh, bored, and resisted the urge to tap his fingers against his arms, crossed across his chest. His siblings were somewhere in the fray, socializing and making connections and making his father look good in front of all the guests.

Something was clicking, underneath all the noise, probably a broken pipe or vent. It was irritating, and he could hear it through every single one of his thoughts. Gaara ignored it, focused on the classical waltz playing over the room. He went through the steps in his mind instead of thinking.

At the very least, his music and language classes had been cancelled. Or, not scheduled. He didn't feel like cello or Chinese. Although he would rather have stayed home, he didn't necessarily mind the music or the dancing, as long as it didn't-

"Do you want an ear?"

Gaara flinched in an extremely undignified way, whirling so his shoulder banged the wall he'd been leaning against to face the sudden noise.

The girl blinked at him, and her mouth wobbled like she was biting back a giggle. She had brown hair braided back in a fishtail pattern, wide brown eyes framed only by a telltale dark puffiness that matched his own.

Her dress was not a gown or pretending to be one. It looked more like a Konoha spring dress than anything else- a light blue thing made with satin or smooth cotton. Lace or fishnet- was that actually fishnet?- made up the sleeveless shoulder cover and covered the skirt, which only fell down barely past her knees. The bodice and shirt were embroidered with what looked like Sakura tree branches, bursting with pink and white blooms.

At first he didn't even notice that, didn't care it was probably the most and least relevant outfit in the ballroom. He didn't notice her yellow slippers, or the tail and back claw of a dragon Henna tattoo curling out from the bottom of her dress on her left leg, or the three silly bands on one of her wrists. Gaara honestly didn't manage to process the crutches, the brace on her right leg and foot- the sources of the clicking.

His ears rang, the hair on the back of his neck sticking up. The shiver ran straight down his spine, outlining the letters there, the tight kanji that wasn't quite messy enough to call messy but definitely not proper.

For a second he stared at her, a full head or more shorter than him. She readjusted on her crutches, let the pressure off her bad knee. One crutch she held only under her arm without holding on, hand full of a chocolate bunny, the head of which she was holding out to him expectantly. Her smile didn't waver, but the giggle disappeared.

"Um," she said. "Sorry, am I annoying you? It's just, you seem lonely and chocolate kind of fixes everything in my opinion, and it's Easter, so I thought I'd come over since you weren't eating any candy. Why aren't you?"

He did not want this.

He did not want this crippled girl with her chocolate rabbit. He didn't want a soulmate, he didn't want his father to know he'd found one or there would immediately be an engagement and a wedding and attention Gaara didn't want to have, positive and negative and gossiping. He didn't want anyone.

Do you want an ear?

"Leave me alone," he said, too harshly to be polite, but he didn't care. "Go away."

Instead of flinching or jumping or fleeing, as people tended to do when he focused his glare, the strange girl trying to give him chocolate frowned thoughtfully. She brought the half-eaten rabbit to her face and bit off an embarrassingly large chunk of torso, not even swallowing before she spoke. "D'you 'ave a mark?"

He was simultaneously repulsed, intrigued and terrified. What was she even doing here? This party was open to the public but nobody ate like that in places like this. There was chocolate all over both her hands, even the one gripping a crutch, and her lips and tongue were stained red from punch or hard candy, he could see it when she spoke.

"No," he snapped.

"Oh," she said. "Okay. My bad. Are you sure you don't want some? I'll eat it all if you don't. They have other stuff on the table if you don't like chocolate? Like, a lot. Have you ever used a fondue fountain? I haven't till today!"

It was like she hadn't even heard him. "Do you know who I am?"

"Um," she said. "No?" Then she blinked. "Wait, yes! You're the mayor's son, right? Whoops. Didn't recognize you there for a second. My name's Fumiko. Mitsuwa. I'd shake your hand but I'd fall over, unless you want the bunny? I can get another one. Gaara, right?"

He wanted to tell her to leave again. He wanted to call security- no, an asylum. He wanted to sink back into the shadows. But his eyes were stuck on a thread in her dress, forgotten on her shoulder- two small nubs sticking out of a knot, like- and that really did look like fishnet-

"Did you make that dress?" he blurted.

"Yep," she said. She'd finally swallowed all the chocolate in her mouth, eyed the bunny like she would go for more. "I'd twirl, but I'd fall."

Do you want an ear?

She didn't know. If she didn't know she wouldn't yell it to the world.

He was being looked at. Gaara could feel eyes staring that didn't belong to this strange girl with the spring dress that actually looked meant for Easter. So he couldn't frighten her. His lips thinned, he moved a few inches away for space, but the girl didn't seem to mind the same way she didn't seem to mind when he'd hissed at her to leave.

"What happened to your leg?"

...

"Wow," she commented, wonder spelled all over her face. "Your house is huge."

"What are you doing here."

"Got bored?"

Gaara sighed. He wasn't sure what to do with the door in his hand, didn't want to close it on his only friend and didn't want her to come inside when his father was home and anyway, he had a tutor over.

"I'll be quiet," she promised. "I want to listen."

"You're going to my concert in three days," he pointed out, vaguely uncomfortable with the idea.

"I wanna listeeeen-"

"Okay, okay," he said quickly. Despite himself a small smile tugged up on his face, and Fumiko grinned in answer, ducking under his arm and limping inside before he could say anything else. A mild worry pushed up to flutter in his chest, but he ignored it. Worst case scenario was she had to leave.

True to her word, Fumiko didn't make any more noise than it took her to move around on her crutches wile he practiced. Although it distracted him- this was her first time in his room and he kind of wanted to see how she was reacting to his baubles and things as she went through them- he didn't let it show, because his tutor had put up a fuss at her presence and Gaara didn't want to give the man a legitimate excuse to kick her out or tell his father.

So he practiced his Cello for the two hours his tutor was there, and sometimes he could hear Fumiko humming along to a familiar tune, but mostly she wandered.

Finally he packed away his instrument an the man left and they were alone save for the at least six hired attendants somewhere in the building. When the door closed, he finally relaxed, cocked his head curiously when he looked over to see Fumiko had settled on his bed with a thick book he recognized to be his Chinese textbook, his English right beside her.

The page was open to a picture of a food of some sort. Gaara figured she wanted it to cook, and a quick glance at the page revealed a foreign list of ingredients. "Do you want help with that?" he asked.

"Nah, nah," she said. "I can write this down myself. Just lemme find some paper."

"No, I mean with reading it."

Fumiko blinked, then looked up, grinned. "I forgot you didn't know," she said. "I'm so used to all my friends knowing."

"Knowing what?"

"I study languages," she said, and laughed. "I think they're neat. I can read a lot of this." She tucked some of the hair by her eye behind her hear, eyed his instrument case he'd leaned against the wall. In Chinese- a shock in her voice- she said, "Your music is beautiful."

...

Mai wasn't much in the mood for a party- Fourth of July and outside or otherwise- but Fumiko had insisted and pleaded her to meet the friend she'd been talking so much about. In a year, Mai hadn't once met this 'Gaara' her sister went on and on about. She always was excusing him- he had a class, he had a concert, he had an obligation, he couldn't get away.

It didn't matter he was the mayor's son. Fumiko was trying way too hard for this stuck up rich twat with a scarily violent reputation. She was always hanging out with him somewhere Mai never seemed to be- the park, his concerts, his house, the parties. He didn't go to school.

If she didn't trust her sister so much ad know she wouldn't lie about something stupid like having a friend, Mai would think exactly that.

But Gaara had promised to come to this stupid firework show thing, according to Fumiko, who she couldn't find. It was dark, and there were people everywhere, walking and talking and lying on blankets under her feet. The smell of hotdogs and Food Truck grub wafted everywhere, and while there was something that smelled like ribs that she wanted to nab, she was getting a headache.

And she couldn't find her sister or her stupid rich boyfriend. ("We're not dating, Mai," her sister had said "He's, like, my best friend.") Whatever. She talked about him enough. If this kid asked her out Fumiko would go with it.

"Fumiko!" she yelled exasperatedly, not caring that everyone was glaring at her. She didn't see them on this part of the ground, so they had to be closer to the water. Mai turned to head back that way. "Fumi- uff!" 

For a person, her roadblock was pretty damn hard. She bounced right off, falling so very gracefully on her ass in the wet grass.

"Ow," she snarled to no one.

"Watch it, clumsy brat," someone above her snapped with just as much venom. There was some shit all over her top. Clumsy brat? I'll show you clumsy brat! Mai thought viciously. She was already pissed off and this guy had the nerve to-! "You made me spill my-"

She didn't even know who it was, just that he yelped on his way down when she kicked his leg. People muttered around her, irritated, but she didn't care, standing and smelling the stupid sticky cherry-something seeping into her bra over the food.

"Fuck you, you goddamn stupid shit-faced asshat!" she spat, and she didn't know if she'd ever cursed that much in one sentence. The boy- and it was a boy, way older than her, it looked like, with a black hoodie that looked expensive- froze where he'd been struggling to jump back up. "You spilled it on me, you massive- what?!"

He was staring at her. Finally she recognized him- Gaara's brother, great, it was always these mayor's kids messing shit up- but she didn't care.

"Holy shit," he said. "Please no."

"Please no what?"

"Do you have anything on your neck?" he muttered without bothering to stand, and Mai paused. Some of the anger bubbled away, and she smacked herself, groaning, turning to walk away without another word, cursing all her luck.

Watch it clumsy brat.

Why. Why had she forgotten.

Two days ago it'd showed up on the back of her neck.

Her only source of comfort was that it meant, at least, that that asshole had 'Fuck you, you goddamn stupid shit-faced asshat' tattooed on the back of his neck for the rest of his life.

...

"He's not coming to your graduation?"

"Ow, Ino. No. He's busy with classes, he can't get out."

"You're valedictorian!" Sakura protested. "You beat me out! What kind of friend doesn't-"

"It's okay," Fumiko said, smiling to mollify her friends. "He already apologized enough for the both of you. He can't get away from his dad-"

"His dad, his dad, his dad," Ino grumbled. "It's always about his dad. Obedient like a stupid dog."

"Ino," Fumiko said mildly.

She wasn't upset. Sure, Fumiko would've loved for him to be there, to be able to hang out after and go grab food with her few Suna classmates, Ino and Sakura and some other transfers from Konoha and Grass mostly, but she understood his father was strict and also that his father didn't really like her or her paralyzed leg much. He would've if he could.

Hours later, standing at the podium, Fumiko's speech broke. It was an accident. She saw him unexpectedly and it was just an automatic reaction to wave and call, "Gaara!" Forgetting the stage and the crowd and the context was an accident.

He smacked his hand over his face, and she tried not to burst out laughing as she salvaged her speech.

...

Easter and the weeks on either side of it always made him nervous.

She didn't know.

Now it was easy to forget about- that he'd never told her about his mark. It'd been so long, they were both in their twenties. But it was the anniversary they met that always reminded him of his reaction to hearing her words. He wasn't scared anymore- he wasn't rebellious to his father or nervous of the local gossip, he was confident he could protect a mate and thought Fumiko would not be the worst person to spend the rest of his life with.

Wouldn't be the worst person, Kankuro would have laughed. Gaara could hear him now. You've only been crushing on this spaz for five years.

Now he didn't mind the idea. Now he even wanted it. But now he couldn't tell her, because now it'd been six years and he'd been lying and avoiding the topic like his life depended on it. She was curious, but also easily distracted.

But he knew she wanted a soulmate. He knew she had "Leave me alone" written down her spine, wondered how she hadn't recognized his perfect handwriting with how much she encouraged him to loosen up, write faster, not worry so much about the way it all looked. (It was abandoning his entire life growing up, but he was working on it and it was worth it).

So he couldn't tell her because she would know he was a liar but couldn't not because nothing would ever happen if she wanted a soulmate.

Hence the 'five years' part of this predicament.

He'd told his brother. In a fit of trust, he'd done it, and his brother had stared at him and called him the biggest idiot on the planet. He wasn't wrong, of course, but Kankuro also had no advice besides "All stereotypes say you should just tell her, bro." He'd also told Mai, who'd punched him four or five times and screamed at him so loud he was surprised Fumiko didn't hear the racket from the farmer's market along with her mother and the rest of the planet.

And then calmed down enough to yank the back of his shirt up for proof and order him to tell her sister.

Unlike Kankuro, who'd been passively nagging him to do so for almost a year and a half, Mai, whom he'd told yesterday, was an entirely different matter. He didn't doubt that things would be a lot worse than just possibly upsetting Fumiko and ruining a chance at any kind of relationship if he tried to ignore it any longer.

He did not doubt Mai's ability to destroy his life. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Gaara wasn't sure if he'd made a mistake telling her or if he'd done it on purpose to keep himself from chickening out over and over again.

Either way, he'd said it; it was out.

"I didn't tell you when I met you but I have a mark and it was exactly what you said to me when you asked if I wanted a rabbit ear," he'd said, and wondered how Fumiko talked in such a breathless way so constantly. "I lied when you asked because I was scared and mad I had to love somebody and you were just too weird but I think I love you now and Mai said she'd kill me if I didn't tell you and I'm so sorry I lied, I won't ever do it again, if I'd known this was going to be what happened I would never have done it, please forgive me, Fumiko, I'd die if I lost you."

And now he held his breath, hands fumbling to strangle each other under the table he was using to hide every tell he had except his face, which, unfortunately, Fumiko could read like a lit Vegas sign.

She blinked at him, with syrup on her face she was in the process of licking off.

There was a long moment of silence and Gaara squirmed.

"Fumiko?" he said finally.

"Just trying to figure out how to say it."

He felt faint. "Say what?"

She pulled a thoughtful face, the same frowning lip-bite he'd seen when she tried to figure out if he was her soulmate the day they'd met, and shrugged, almost to herself. Her fork stabbed in and out of her pancakes. They were at a Denny's, celebrating Easter, and it'd been all her idea.

"That, I, uh..." Unexpectedly, she grinned sheepishly. "Know?"

His fingers stilled. "What."

"Well, I mean," she said. "You were so upset, when I asked you? If you had a mark. So I knew you had one. And then we just kind of- I don't know. Hit it off. Everything's been right. And you were always telling me about your dad- how stifled you always felt, how trapped. How you didn't want to do this or that or... so I figured you didn't want a relationship like that."

"Didn't... what?" he said again, weaker, and she put down her fork.

"I always told myself before," she said by way of explanation. "I mean, my mark is kinda odd. I figured whoever it belonged to wouldn't want a soulmate. I just wanted to at least be friends with someone my soul is supposed to match." She shook her head, smiled. "A mark is just skin deep. It has to be real before people can be soulmates, y'know?"

He was silent. His heart, which had been practically having palpitations just a few minutes prior, had quieted to a terrifying nothing. "You knew," he said, in disbelief.

She paled, and he immediately wanted to kick himself.

"I'm sorry," she rushed, suddenly desperate-sounding. "Are you mad? I didn't think- I didn't think it bothered you, if I had I would've brought it up when I found out. How long have you-? Oh, of course you'd be... I'm sorry. I love you too. Also I recognized the handwriting."

"No, no," he protested.

Wait.

I love you too.

He was sitting in the same seat as her in the booth. That was one of her odd quirks. It didn't matter they could see each other better if they sat across, she wanted to sit next to because she liked the way he wasn't warm and he liked the way she was.

Gaara had always wanted to kiss her. That was not a new feeling. But it was unexpected in this situation and he wasn't prepared for it.

He couldn't, not when she was upset, and wouldn't anyway because he was a coward, so he quashed it, hesitated before touching her shoulder. "No," he said again, feeling like his brain was somewhere on Saturn. "I'm sorry, this is my fault, don't-"

She kissed him.

...

"Don't let this get to your head," Mai muttered as Kankuro opened his fancy truck's door for her. They were going to the Fourth of July picnic, the same one Mai had cursed him out at and one she'd only been to twice- soon to be three times. "It's just one date."

He'd been nagging and nagging and nagging the subject ever since she'd cursed to the beat of his soulmate mark. Years. It hadn't helped at all that her sister hit it off with the big jerk's brother, so she constantly had to see him and interact with him in her own home.

Kankuro just smirked at her, heaved the cooler with the Bud Lights, cherry sodas, grapefruits and money for ribs inside under her feet. (Why he'd put dollar bills in a cooler was beyond her.)

"I like your shirt," he said, referring to her puffed loose red crop-top with the beaded black flames curling out of the hem. It was paired with her only pair of black leggings, a red belt, nice red sneakers and some bangles. She'd dressed nice for this, but now she regretted it. "Did you get your sister to make it just for me?"

His tone was teasing but she bristled.

He closed the door, laughing, before she could kick him in the chest.

**Author's Note:**

> There are many things I left out of this: Gaara helping Fumi with her Etsy orders, staying up late, Gaara playing a regular guitar and writing songs with Fumiko, Gaara meeting all the Leaf nin- All this happened, just was not written XD- a little more on Mai and Kankuro.
> 
> For those of you with no idea who these OCs are, check my profile! There's a whole series around them!
> 
> This was half: shit I need to do this stupid thing and half: I HATE WRITER'S BLOCK IM SORRY FANS OF TOF! I'm working on chapter four, I swear!
> 
>  
> 
> Oh! Hey! I'm going to MEGACON with Lily and a bunch of my family, and I'll be there ALL FOR DAYS! :D I'll be cosplaying as Lucario and Neji on varying days, and will update via Twitter if I can, and I would LOVE to meet some of you lovely fans of TOF and Fumiko! LILY will be dressed as MAI, and my mother as FUMIKO, both of which WERE NOT my idea! XD
> 
> Fumi's dress is on my deviantart (Geraniumpickle) at http://geraniumpickle.deviantart.com/art/Fanfic-Dress-Reference-NOT-MINE-603438778


End file.
